


Such Compatible Machines

by calorosa



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Tangled (2010)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Jaeger Pilots, Jaegers, Kaiju (Pacific Rim), Kicking Kaiju Ass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 19:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1719851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calorosa/pseuds/calorosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rapunzel and Eugene have to prove that they're drift-compatible if they both want to pilot the new jaeger, Frisson Corona. But the drift can make the relationship between co-pilots messy. Tangled/Pacific Rim crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Compatible Machines

 

Eugene had arrived at the base in the middle of the night and promptly fallen asleep on the hastily-made cot in his cabin. The chirp of his watch’s alarm woke him, but the scuffling sound from the other side of his wall did not go unnoticed. He had to grope for the door in the dark since he hadn’t taken any time to familiarize himself with his new quarters.

 

He followed the sound only a few yards down the wall of the hallway, where through an open door he watched an _adorable_ woman push her cot into the far corner of the room.

 

“You need any help?”

 

“Uh, I can handle this.” She turned. “Fitzherbert, right? You missed breakfast.”

 

He nodded once, reading _Cira_ on the upper-left of her jumpsuit; the name patch on his own was folded over and hidden, as he’d tied the top down around his waist by the sleeves as soon as he’d shut the cabin door behind him the night before.

 

“I recognize you from the profile picture on your file; I’ve been reading up on you.” She walked the few steps to the door and stretched out her hand. “Rapunzel Cira.”

 

Eugene took her hand, surprised by the firmness of her grip. “Good to meet you. I guess there’s no point in introducing myself.” The ringing familiarity of her name-- _Rapunzel Cira_ \-- jarred through the sleep-haze he was still  coming out of. “You’re younger than I expected.”

 

“Huh. That might not be the case if you’d read my profile.”

 

Not yet feeling alert enough to engage her, Eugene looked over her shoulder at her wall and desk. “You look like you’re already settled in.” He pointed at her tablet, plugged into the wall, and to pictures and notices she had pinned to her corkboard. “How long have you been stationed here?”

 

“I got in this morning.”

 

“You’re making yourself at home a little prematurely, don’t you think?”

 

“Not at all.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t mean to leave any time soon.”

 

“Well, like I said....” Eugene made to step away, but turned back around before fully out of her doorway. “You haven’t even seen the _Frisson Corona_ yet, so you shouldn’t get your hopes up.”

 

“Don’t worry, I’m no fool.” She continued speaking to him as she pushed her door shut. “You really should read my profile. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

 

Rapunzel didn’t watch him walk away through the peephole; she knew she’d prodded him sufficiently away. There was no use in getting familiar with him yet. After all, the Pan Pacific Defense Corps had already bumped him around three bases trying to find him a replacement for his dead partner.

 

She’d read his personnel file like a book, then asked for the incident reports, battle maps, and simulation records that were sealed; they were granted, probably because she’d asked very nicely. It wasn’t that she wasn’t impressed with what she found-- all pilots, she felt, were impressive and even admirable on paper. But she felt like maybe there had been a missed connection between herself and the last pilot Eugene Fitzherbert had failed to properly connect with: Maximus Elwyn. Their neural patterns didn’t match exactly, but his simulation scores and experience with strike-type jaegers made Maximus look like a very appealing partner.

 

But Maximus was stationed in Seattle and already had found an acceptable partner not long after the debacle involving Fitzherbert-- the third he had been involved in, at least on record-- and she was stuck in San Diego with the prospect of having to drift with a troublemaker.

 

Next door to her Eugene unpacked a clean set of clothes from his duffel bag, meaning to go shower and try to forget the less-than-stellar first impression he’d made on his potential co-pilot. _I should try_ , he thought, _not to punch her in the face since she’s a woman_.

 

Her words repeated themselves in his head: _You really should read my profile_.

 

How annoying. How presumptuous of her to assume he’d _neglected_ to read it. It wasn’t like it was required of him, anyway. He dug his tablet out of his bag. He knew it had been delivered to him, and he’d read it when he was damn well ready. He turned on his tablet and sat down on his cot.

 

He spent half an hour hunched over his tablet, scanning over some sections of Rapunzel Cira’s profile, lingering over others. He knew now why she was so confident that she’d be the only one of them to get the _Frisson Corona_ : she’d had only one partner before, and their compatibility tests were to be her first since; his search for another co-pilot was ridden with conflict. _Of course she’s brushing me off; no one else has wanted  to take me on_.

 

Throughout his warm shower, Eugene permitted himself to mope-- to feel resentful and frustrated. But as he zipped up his clean jumpsuit and shook out his wet hair, he decided he’d show her not to write him off. He’d show her he deserved a jaeger of his own too.

 

He purposely bore it in mind as he set foot out of his cabin. The training room where they were to have their first appointment with the selection team was the opposite direction from Rapunzel’s room, but he looked back at it anyway. The door was open, and she was laughing inside. Being sullen, serious, and very set on the task ahead of him, he felt offended to hear it; was she not taking their impending trial seriously?

 

She was sitting at her desk, peering into the face of her tablet. A man’s voice issued from it’s tinny speaker:

 

“Really! I’d much rather be there on the coast with you. I hate it here. It’s cold, and I can’t even go outside--”

 

Eugene cleared his throat, and Rapunzel looked over her shoulder, her short hair doing a little bounce against her cheek.

 

“You’re boyfriend’s gonna make you late.” Angled toward him, she gave Eugene a clear view of the man she was talking to. He scowled, his heavy eyebrows knotted together-- probably at him.

 

Rapunzel wrinkled her nose at him and frowned. “This is my co-pilot: Pascal.”

 

 _Ah-ha_. She called him her co-pilot, but Eugene knew that if she was talking to the same Pascal he’d just read about, this was her irreparably injured, decommissioned ex-co-pilot. The one he might potentially replace.

 

“Well....” Rapunzel looked back at the screen. She probably realized her mistake.

 

“Is that him?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Hold me up.”

 

Eugene gave a short wave to the tablet screen in lieu of a handshake. “Eugene Fitzherbert.”

 

Pascal continued to scowl at him, which made Eugene feel scrutinized. And he’d be under plenty of scrutiny soon enough.

 

“Anyway,” he pointed his index finger at Cira as he stepped away, “I’ll see you in a few.”

 

“What do you think, Pascal?”

 

“I don’t like him. Looks too swarthy.”

 

“You think?”

 

“And I don’t like how he just popped into your room.”

 

“Well, I had the door open.”

 

“Your trials start soon.”

 

“Yeah. My schedule isn’t very specific, though. What did we do first at our trial?”

 

“We sparred with rubber-tipped rope darts.”

 

“You sure? They didn’t check our neural patterns first?”

 

“I don’t think so. Why?”

 

“I just wish they would. Our records look compatible but... I don’t know, I don’t trust him. You know, like I trusted you.”

 

“You think you could request another brain pattern test?”

 

“I could. I could ask nicely.”

 

“That would delay the trial.”

 

“So what choice do I have?”

 

“That’s the thing, I guess. If you want to get back into a jaeger you’ve got to suck it up and make the best of whatever you have in this guy.”

 

“You’re right.”

 

“I can’t say I’m not jealous...”

 

“Pascal....”

 

“...but you need a new partner. You know, one with all four functioning limbs.”

 

Rapunzel bit her lip. “I’d still prefer _you_ in a jaeger with me to him.”

 

“That’s sweet, Rapunzel, but it’s also stupid.”

 

“Urgh. I thought you said you didn’t like him.”

 

“Yeah, but he’s there, and I’m not. Fitzherbert. Go get a feel for him. I don’t know, maybe give him a chance. Even if he’s a punk he might turn out to be a competent pilot. And the sooner you get a partner, the sooner you get back in a jaeger. I hear the _Frisson Corona_ is a beauty.”

 

When Rapunzel arrived at the training room, Eugene was on the mats, stretching. His boots and his jacket were against the wall.

 

“You’re right on time, Cira.” The leader of the selection committee stood with the base’s Marshall at one end of the room. “We’ll have you sparring on the hour, so you’ll need to remove your shoes.”

 

The base’s established pilots, Yuy and Darlian, showed up just before they began, joining a few other technicians and staff that had lined the walls to see the show.

 

“Everyone sure seems interested.” He smirked at her, making eye contact.

 

What was he trying to do? Intimidate her? Why would he do that? _He’s the one who should be working hard to make me his partner_. “The new pilots of a brand new jaeger are probably a big deal.”

 

“That suits me just fine.” He looked around them, over his shoulders.

 

“You’re not one of her pilots yet, Fitzherbert.”

 

“Neither are you, _Miss_ Cira.”

 

“Okay, you two-- we need to begin.” The Marshall’s broomstick mustache bristled as he spoke.

 

A woman from the selection committee addressed them: “I’ll be tallying points. We’ll see you spar to three to begin with. You may use a staff or your bare hands.”

 

Rapunzel lifted her chin. “I won’t be needing a staff.”

 

“I’ll go bare hands also, then.”

 

It was when they began to circle one another on the mats that Eugene realized how much shorter than him Rapunzel was.

 

“Hey! Don’t even think of taking it easy on me because I’m a woman.”

 

“Okay. But don’t be too hard on me just because you don’t like me.”

 

He knew it would be near impossible to surprise her while they were sizing each other up, but he didn’t want to let her be the one to make the first move. With two giant steps he closed the space between them; she raised her arms and fists, ready to block; he crouched low in front of her and sprung upward, his shoulder going straight into her gut.

 

A few pleasing _ooohhhh_ s sounded before Rapunzel found her footing. Though Eugene expected her to retreat and recover, she charged right at him. He made to deflect whatever attack she was about to make with her raised fist, but she surprised him again by kneeing him in the stomach instead. Her fingers nearly closed around his wrist, but he was able to brush them off with his free hand. It was all he could do to keep up his defenses against her dart-like attacks, until he suddenly couldn’t; she’d jammed her heel into the instep of his foot, and the moment’s distraction gave her the time she needed to force him by bending his wrist down to her height, where she was able to throw her elbow into the place where his shoulder met his neck.

 

Rapunzel knew what it would taste like to floor him and earn the round’s point; his body was giving in exactly as she expected it to.

 

The three moves she could see ahead to were wiped away when he managed to swing the side of his flattened palm into her waist. He straightened, and tried free his wrist from her grip while turning behind her. She held tight and reached up and over her shoulder to grasp the back of his neck--even as she felt him brace to do something detrimental to her-- and threw her weight forward into a roll. At the smack of his entire body hitting the mat at once, she lept into a crouch over his chest, and pushed her forearm into his throat. It wasn’t enough to choke him, but she knew from the look on his face that he realized he’d lost.

 

“Point to Cira!”

 

Rapunzel walked back to her side of the mat, trying to ignore the light applause around her. It could encourage her if she let it; it would make her lose focus if she let it. _And anyway, they’re not really cheering for me. They’re just here for a show_.

 

 _I’ve got a  good thing going_ . She rolled her shoulders and took a few deep breaths before turning around. _If I just keep it up, keep ahead of him, I can win the match. I can beat him_.

 

She’d surprised him not by beating him, but by being such a challenge. Eugene had almost forgotten what it tasted like to be afraid of losing.

 

So he made the first move again. _If she wants to dance, I’ll dance_. It was a feint, a charge her stomach and a dodge so he could get behind her. It was her neck he wanted. But she continued to elude him and throw so much resistance his way. She was trying to take out his legs from beneath him, he could tell.

 

Perspiration started to drip from the ends of his hair onto his shoulders when he moved, and he knew that their match-- as they were fighting it-- was becoming a stalemate. Out of ideas for deflecting her while pursuing her, he decided to focus on one.

 

Baring his whole torso to her-- his arms stretched back like wings-- felt inherently wrong, and he had to breathe through the hits she landed on him and remind himself that he wanted it to happen. The sacrifice gave him enough time for him to enclose her neck in his arms, where he’d been trying to get her all along.

 

She turned around before his grasp grew too tight, throwing her fists up above her at his face. She was surprised-- which was satisfying-- but he would have been too. It wasn’t often that he was willing make himself vulnerable for something so small as a headlock.

 

He leaned forward into her back, crossed his leg over her’s and let them both fall backward onto the mat.

 

Though her arms were still free, her whole body was in his grasp, immobilized.

 

“Fitzherbert-- point!”

 

His arms and legs slackened, and already Rapunzel was throwing them off of her. She hoped no one could hear the growl she made as she stalked to the opposite side of the mat. No, they probably couldn’t, over the claps and jeers that had erupted.

 

Eugene got to his feet-- without haste-- and grinned at the applause around him.

 

“Cut it out, Fitzherbert. You’ve still got to take another point from me before you can smile.”

 

“When do we start?”

 

Rapunzel charged at him, ducked into a roll, straightened once she’d passed him, and swung her leg in an arc at his shins.

 

He fell but had already turned around, and was poised to either retaliate with a kick of his own or spring away. She lunged forward to grab his ankle, but he caught her in the gut with a jab of his foot.

 

There wasn’t enough air in her chest for her to bounce away, so she lurched in the forward. Doubled over, it wasn’t hard for him to grab her legs right out from under her.

 

Eugene had made this girl furious, he could tell by the way she clawed at the mat as he pulled her legs over her head by the ankles. She was tricksy, but he could be too. He stepped over her back, still holding her legs on either side of him; her back arched and he felt himself smiling at the victory that was unfolding right beneath him. She couldn’t break _this_ hold.

 

But then she wasn’t thrashing anymore, and he suddenly felt her legs slipping out of his grip; she was twisting out of submission.

 

It happened with enough force that Eugene stumbled. Rapunzel, still half-prone on the mat, pinned his legs down by twisting her own into the backs of his knees.

 

There was rolling and a strange struggle between them to make the other roll belly-down onto the floor.

 

“Alright, alright!”

 

“Cut it out, before you hurt yourselves!”

 

The selection committee members were shouting over the whooping that had risen at their apparent stalemate.

 

“It’s a draw-- _let go_!”

 

They loosened the tension in their legs gradually, letting go without meeting one another’s eyes.

 

Rapunzel re-laced her shoes, nodding up at the few people who came to pat her on the shoulder or give some variation of “well done”. Mostly she didn’t want to look at Fitzherbert. In her peripheral vision, he wasn’t alone and he was pacing. But seeing even a little sliver of him was too much.

 

Her breath was already back to its normal rate, but her heart felt like it was beating a little too vigorously. She was overwhelmed by her how good she felt, and how it was at odds with the annoyance at how he smiled when he beat her and the disappointment of ending the match in a draw rather than a definitive point. On these things she tried to focus, because with every passing second she felt a sense of success and relief.

 

“Hey, Cira, why are you pouting?” Eugene reached down with his hand to help her up.

 

“I’m not.” She stood up without touching him.

 

“That was fun. Wasn’t that fun?”

 

“Your don’t have any shoes on.”

 

“I haven’t sparred with anyone like that since--”

 

“Since you and Maximus Elwyn tried to smash each other to pulp?”

 

“You read the report.”

 

“I saw _pictures_.”

 

“That wasn’t a good match at all.” He stepped to the side, trying to get into her line of sight. “That wasn’t exciting, or challenging, or--”

 

“Surprising.”

 

“Hey, _I’m_ the one one who should be surprised. I was starting to think I’d never find another copilot. What’s so surprising about us having a good time out there?”

 

Rapunzel shrugged, folding her jacket over one of her bare arms. She could see the selection committee past Fitzherbert’s shoulders.

 

“Just-- when I was reading about you I didn’t think you seemed like someone I could be compatible with.”

 

Rapunzel looked up when she told him.

 

His expression flexed in ways she thought he might be trying to suppress, since he only offered a light “Ouch.”

 

“I’m sorry. But we should be critical of one another, don’t you think? We’re not copilots yet, Fitzherbert.”

 

“Cira, Fitzherbert-- we want to put you two in the _Frisson Corona_ \--”

 

Eugene wheeled around to face one of the lieutenants of the selection committee.

 

“-- just to try a neural handshake.”

 

“When?”

 

Even though she didn’t feel the excitement Eugene felt humming in his chest, he thought Cira’s voice sounded a little higher-pitched than it had seconds before.

 

“If we alert the technicians now we can have you suited up and inside her cockpit in a few hours.”

 

“Oh my god.”

 

Eugene turned around; he saw Rapunzel grasping the roots of her short hair, her eyes wide.

 

“Understand, it’s not anything official,” said the lieutenant. “But it’s looking good.”

 

Those words were the last they heard in person from the selection committee; for the following two hours after they were shuffled along, being fitted for suits that would match the Corona’s connections.

 

Eugene flexed his fingers once he was fully outfitted, enjoying the snugness all around him.

 

“How long has it been since you’ve been in a suit?” Rapunzel asked him from where she stood, a technician refitting the upper half of her own.

 

“Is it that obvious?” He inhaled as far as he could, to test the limit of the shell around him. “Gah, it’s not like I’ve been counting the days or anything.”

 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

 

Eugene had narrowed his eyes at her, so he looked away.

 

“No-- what is it?”

 

“I’m just surprised to actually see you in a suit, is all.”

 

“Why?” Rapunzel spread her arms out in the shape of a _T_ so that the technician could slide arm pieces onto her.

 

“You’re not like the other pilots I’ve met.”

 

“Because I’m not a man?”

 

“No, no.” Eugene crinkled his nose at the thought of the woman he’d been mismatched with in San Francisco. “Maybe what I mean is that you don’t seem like the military type.”

 

“Uh, did I not just finish clobbering you with my bare hands?” She smirked. “And anyway, neither do you.”

 

Eugene knew she had a point; he’d have had no interest signing up for the regular, human-on-human kinds of wars.

 

“I’ll be honest, Miss Cira--”

 

“ _Just_ Cira, thank you.”

 

“--I have no idea what you’re doing here. You have rich parents, you’ve been to nice schools, and you weren’t even _born_ on the West Coast--”

 

“Ah, you read about me, huh?”

 

“--and I can think of way more stuff a girl like you would rather be doing with their life than piloting Jaegers.”

 

Rapunzel didn’t bristle; she’d heard it all before. “Well, why do _you_ do this?”

 

He took a few breaths before answering. “Because being a jaeger pilot is important, and it isn’t easy. You risk a lot every time you get out there with a kaiju. People appreciate that. They admire that. And not everyone can do it.”

 

The technician handed Rapunzel her helmet and, outfitted at last, she sat down next to Eugene on the bench.

 

“Then I guess our motivations aren’t so different. As far as the last part goes, anyway: not everyone can do it. So I _should_.”

 

It wasn’t much of an explanation, in Eugene’s opinion. He tried to see if he could make anything out from her expression.

 

“But I’ll be honest, Fitzherbert, you don’t seem like someone who responds well to excessive discipline.”

 

“Maybe I’m one of those people who craves it.”

 

“Urgh. Don’t you think it’s kind of strange to ask each other questions at all?” There was nothing on the wall for her to stare at, but she kept her eyes on it as she spoke. “If the neural handshake is successful, we’ll understand enough.”

 

It had been true enough between her and Pascal. There came a point where there were no secrets between them, only perfect understanding. It became hard after so many engagements and trainings to tell the difference between things they had told one another, and things they’d learned in the drift. And foremost, they were friends, comfortable in the knowledge that everything they knew about each other was sacred.

 

Hadn’t Fitzherbert had a bond like that with his last copilot? How could one not?

 

“So you’re totally comfortable with the fact that I could be inside your head soon?”

 

Eugene shrugged at her, even though she still wasn’t looking at him. “I think you _will_ be inside my head soon.” He wished she’d be more optimistic. Even if they were a good match, he didn’t want her to end up rejecting him because of a bad attitude.

 

“That doesn’t make you nervous?”

 

“Nope. But _you’re_ worried. Why? You afraid of what I’m going to see?”

 

“Tch.” She finally turned to look at him. “I can’t believe you’re so… callous about the whole thing. I never dreamed anyone would be so much a part of me-- let alone two.”

 

Eugene wished he knew whether she was telling the truth; it felt more like she was afraid of him.

 

“Look-- it’s part of the deal, right? You want to be a pilot, you’ve got to drift with someone.”

 

She looked away and nodded.

 

“You want to pilot the _Corona_ , right?”

 

Another nod.

 

“Then you’ve got to make the decision to trust me.”

 

 _That seems like a horrible decision_ , she thought. “Why haven’t you been matched up with any of the other pilots you’ve met?”

 

“I usually don’t hit it off with the pilots I meet--” he gestured toward the space between them “-- case in point. Which is actually really weird, because most people find me charming and irresistible.”

 

Rapunzel rolled her eyes so he could see her do it.

 

“I lost a partner and a jaeger, too, Cira. Don’t stand in my way of getting another one.”

 

“A partner or a jaeger?”

 

Static sounded from the intercom speakers in the ceiling, jarring them from their sparring. The _Corona_ ’s cockpit was ready for them.

 

Technicians were waiting to fit them into the cockpit’s connections when they halted, middling between the left and right seats.

 

“Let’s try Fitzherbert on the right,” Tendo Choi’s amiable voice suggested through the headpieces in their helmets. “He’s got some experience on you, Cira.”

 

Eugene didn’t look at her as he took his place on the right-side pedals; he’d gloat later if it meant he could avoid displeasing her so soon before their handshake.

 

A hum spread through his suit, then through his body as the technicians guided sockets from the jaeger to the outlets in his suit, and he felt warm adrenaline rush to his fingertips.

He turned left to see Cira look away from him at the last second. She was breathing through her mouth.

 

“Cira!”

 

She turned back to him, and Eugene thought she looked apprehensive, almost scared.

 

“We’ve got this, right?”

 

Tendo spoke into their ears again. “I hope you two are ready. Initiating neural handshake in three...two…”

 

He saw her nod once before they were both taken back into their minds:

 

_Cut tension starting at the nape of her neck, upward until there was only lightness; hair in his hands, the same color as his; warm sunlight through her closed eyes, a hand on her shoulder; warmth of blood, warmth of victory, warmth of spotlights and camera flashes; faces disappeared, her body hardened; the softness of other bodies yielded a hard pleasure; a crunch of matter, organic and inorganic, and a pit of loss; loss as lightness, and sad, then disapproval all around; her body inclined, muscles stretching under her jumpsuit as she moved in her cabin; his hair disheveled but clean, face in an open door where it shouldn’t be--_

 

Rapunzel heard someone cry out, but was unsure whether it came from her.

 

Tendo: _“How’re you doing in there?”_

 

Without having to look, Rapunzel knew Eugene was nodding.

 

“We’re okay.”

 

In the time since she’d drifted with Pascal, she’d forgotten what it was like to hear someone’s voice at once both inside and outside of her head.

 

_“From out here you guys look dandy.”_

 

“Good.” She wanted to sound reassuring even though she felt hazy, as if she was losing blood. Though it was difficult because she was strapped to the pedals, she bent her knees and tried to shake the feeling out of her body.

 

_“The Marshall wants you to try a simulation. See how long you can hold the connection.”_

 

Their cockpit screens came alive in front of them, and they both noticed that there was no jolt from their drop landing.

 

_“See if either of you have tackled this simulation before.”_

 

They took their first steps forward together, staggered, and recovered with both Jaeger-arms thrown out to stop them from splashing into the shallows of the miracle mile in--

 

“Seattle!” Eugene yelled when they stood up and saw the remnants of the Space Needle in the cityscape before them.

 

They looked up to the radar on their monitors, and turned to face the sizable blip that was coming at them.

 

“Trespasser.” Even as Rapunzel said it she saw the axe-head in her mind, and perceived a sharp revulsion at its smile that she knew she’d never felt on her own.

 

They tried to move into a stance to run. Nothing. They tried to put the Jaeger’s right leg forward.

 

Rapunzel called across the cockpit, eyes clenched shut in the effort to move their leg. “What’s wrong, Eugene?”

 

“I don’t know.” His voice came through her earpiece and into her mind, but dissonantly.

 

_“ What’s going on in there? ”_

 

Rapunzel turned to look at Eugene in the cockpit, seeing herself through his eyes as he also turned to look at her.

 

_“ Your neural handshake is falling apart! ”_

 

It hurt Rapunzel somewhere behind her eyes to look at him looking at her. She could see Eugene’s eyebrows crunched together through the glare on his helmet.

 

She told him: “I want to pilot this jaeger.”

 

He replied: “I want to be a pilot.”

 

They inhaled together; exhaled together; repeated until it didn’t hurt so much just to look at one another; continued until they could turn away and put the jaeger’s right foot forward.

 

Tendo said something they didn’t catch, because they were charging the Trespasser with an arm drawn back, ready to punch its ugly face.

 

The simulator had them in a bare-bones jaeger without any peripheral weapons, so they were stuck beating it to a blue-bloody pulp with their fists and feet. It was a low-level simulation, so they were unjostled when the kaiju on their screen swiped at their head with its clawed appendage.

 

With enough blunt trauma to its head, though, it went down and their cockpit screen went black.

 

Rapunzel thought of what it had felt like to win alongside Pascal, and faintly heard the sound of people cheering that Eugene was remembering. Her heavy breathing sounded loud in the confines of her helmet.

 

Rapunzel licked her lips, feeling perspiration coming down her face.

 

The Marshal’s voice sounded in their helmets: _“I want you both to disengage and switch places.”_

 

They turned to look at one another; Rapunzel realized she hadn’t licked up sweat just as she saw the red going all the way down to Eugene’s chin through the glare in his helmet.

 

_“Cira on the right, Fitzherbert on the left.”_

 

Eugene disengaged first, and she was surprised-- surprised at being sucked away from him so suddenly, and surprised that he hadn’t put up a fight about it.

 

“You okay?” Eugene gestured at her face.

 

She stepped out of the pedals. “I think so. You’ve got it, too.”

 

He moved his lips inward and tasted the blood he hadn’t had the awareness to taste before.

 

Again, they were racing into one another’s head space, through a camera flash for a picture someone had asked Eugene to pose for, and the burn in Rapunzel’s legs when she reached the top of a hill at a run.

 

And the drift was silent as it should have been the first time-- free of dissonance, easy to ride in, easy to breathe in.

 

Tendo was was back on the line with them. _“Your handshake is holding very steady, guys. And your vitals are much stabler now. How do you feel?”_

 

Eugene felt Rapunzel nod as he replied, “Better.”

 

_“Fantastic. We’re gonna drop you again, see how you fare.”_

 

The cockpit screen was alight again, and they were running toward the ping on their radar before they even had a visual.

 

 

* * *

 

The Marshal didn’t meet them when they left to the _Corona_ ’s cockpit. He wasn’t waiting for them when they left the locker rooms, after they’d taken off their drive suits and cleaned their bloody noses. They got dinner in the mess hall together and ate it in a solid silence despite the chatter around them-- no Marshal in sight.

 

In his cabin, Eugene turned out the lights to take a nap. He’d had a headache since their first drift-- the mismatched one. He wanted to be disappointed that the drift and the simulation was better when she was on the right side-- the dominant side. But remembering just how wrong it felt the first time, how the discomfort of it traced itself through his mind like an itch made him glad that there was any way at all to finally drift with someone successfully. Even if he wasn’t taking the lead.

 

He drifted off wondering what she’d seen in him, and whether she’d be like some pilots who pretended they hadn’t seen a thing, or like the few who wanted to ask questions….

 

….and woke up to dull, metallic reverberations at his cabin door. He didn’t need to look through the peephole to know who it was; she was calling his name.

 

“Eugene! _Eu_ gene!”

 

He swung the door wide, and squinted, for she had thrust the screen of her tablet at his face.

 

“Assignments!”

 

He took it from her, but he didn’t have to read it. She was beaming and grasping the roots of her short hair in her fists, so he knew.

 

He finally had a place to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Pacific Rim pulled the strings of my mecha-fangirl heart, and I know Rapunzel and Eugene are totally drift compatible. I wanted to post it last summer, and then I didn't want to post it until I had the whole thing finished, and then I didn't think anyone would be interested, and then I was embarrassed, and then I decided I didn't care.
> 
> This was my first time writing action scenes, and I want to get better at it, so I'd appreciate feedback. I think I did more research on that than anything else. I know some of the Pacific Rim elements are outside of the accepted cannon. For example, there is no shatterdome in San Diego.
> 
> Two more parts. Thanks for reading.


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